


sunlight on a broken column — in this hollow valley

by orphan_account



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Tommy Kinkle Lives
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-18 16:09:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28620831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Tommy Kinkle died. That's what mortals did. Witches could play around with them however they liked without consequences, and that was the end of it.Harvey didn't want to accept it.So he grasped onto the compliant corpse of his brother's body with all of the desperation he had, and refused to let go of the man who had practically raised him.
Relationships: Harvey Kinkle & Tommy Kinkle
Kudos: 5
Collections: hekiv's CAOS collection





	sunlight on a broken column — in this hollow valley

**Author's Note:**

> Self-indulgence means some stuff will be changed around and there'll be much less focus on magic, and more focus on character interactions. I'm also not a seasoned writer by any means so spelling errors and such might slip past my proofreading and quality of my writing will not be utterly high.

_ He said that his dream was that my dreams come true. _

_ He and Sabrina were the lenses that let me see colour, that let me feel euphoria even when the broody thoughts and the crushing desperation of this town threatened to sweep me away into oblivion. When my head swam too much with worries and Dad kept going off on his tirades and I found myself almost weightless and adrift like a feather, Tommy was there with his fond nicknames and his arms around me and his steady balance I could always tether myself to. _

_ Sometimes, I couldn’t bear to reveal my thoughts to Sabrina, even when I knew she would never laugh or tease me for them. It would be a shame, the voice in my head would always say, if she would find out all the impossible and silly things I dwelled on and realised how pathetic I was. That voice was silent when it came to my brother. Tommy was always there for me and that voice knew he was the only one. No doubts could ever cause a crack in the faith I had in my brother. He was the only one I  _ **_knew_ ** _ in my bones would never leave me, no matter how weak or cowardly or witless I was. He was my brother and he’d loved me when I was young and dumb and he loved me when I was upset and bad at speaking and he loved me when I was okay. _

_ He saw my faults. My dad listed them out often, both when he was drunk and when he was sober. Tommy had seen me at my worst, and he had never let that stop him from protecting me like always.  _

_ He said that his dream was that my dreams come true. _

_ But then he was suddenly gone, and there was nothing left to dream for. The ground beneath my feet had been swept away and there was just darkness mixed with anguish and the slightest bit of hope that he was somewhere safe in the mines, that he was still alive. I didn’t want to believe he was dead, and I planned on never letting that flicker of hope in my chest die. Without hope, there was nothing left for me to anchor myself to, nothing to have faith in anymore. No reason to stay here. _

_ Tommy was somewhere in the hellish depths of the mines, crushed beneath a boulder, until Sabrina turned out to be a witch who brought him back to me all messed up, and then I had to kill him again. I had to watch the life leave my brother’s eyes, except he didn’t have life at all - this living corpse with Tommy’s features was soulless. _

_ I had to live with the knowledge that he’d died for me once, and that he needed to die a second time because of me. By my hands or by the hands of a girl who I'd discovered I'd barely known at all. The latter option was completely out of the question, so it had to be me who would put Tommy to rest like he deserved. _

_ Except I couldn’t.  _

* * *

“No.” Harvey’s voice was wrought with despair and he hated how he could see his emotions reflected in the face of the girl in front of him.   
  


Sabrina’s beautiful eyes were tight with grief and pain and held none of the wondrous light or determination he was used to seeing. 

As he tried his best to wrap his mind around what his girlfriend had just revealed to him, Harvey’s breaths came out harder and harder, matching his struggles to keep his emotions in check.

He didn’t know if he was projecting, if the truth was that he couldn’t read Sabrina’s eyes at all and that his mind was pretending otherwise. It might have been deluding him all along. It certainly hadn't caught onto any of Sabrina's lies and what a shock to reality that was.

His heart might have always pounded and shuddered for the girl standing in front of him, but in this moment, it was solely beating in love from memories. It was beating for a girl who used to rest her head on Harvey’s chest and cuddle him in the open back of his car, a girl who was the beaming golden line resting on the horizon of a dark world for him. That line had appeared steady and constant for as long as he could remember and now it was gone. His world had never been darker than it was now. This girl was a total stranger standing in his living room.

And at the back of his mind, Harvey knew she was not the only stranger present. He kept his gaze on Sabrina Spellman’s earnest face and tried his best not to acknowledge the figure lurking in the shadows nearby. The hairs on his neck prickled as the living room’s light flickered above, casting blurry darkness around and turning Harvey’s surroundings cold and harsh and frightening.  _ He  _ felt like a stranger in his own home, like when he had to sneak out the back door sometimes after hearing his father stumble into the house in a drunken stupor and his name being yelled behind him like a curse.

Sabrina’s hands moved forward to rest on Harvey’s shoulders, fingers gentle and delicate. Harvey kept his eyes firmly above her head so he could momentarily avoid seeing her gaze as he stepped backwards, letting her grasp fall off. He kept his mouth shut. If he opened it, he didn’t know what would come spilling out.

“Harvey, I’m sorry,” Sabrina finally said. “I’m sorry about all of this - it’s just awful, but… but you have to know, things are going to get worse for Tommy if-”

“You don’t know what you’re asking me,” he interrupted Sabrina. He had to interrupt her. There was a stone swelling in his throat but he had to force his words past it.

“I do, Harvey, believe me. I do.”

“No, you don’t.” Harvey shook his head. “How can you? Sabrina, you don’t- you don’t get how  _ messed up _ this is. You’re asking me to sit by and do nothing while you… while you kill him right after you've brought him back to me.” If he wasn't fighting to keep his voice from breaking, it would've risen into something hysterical towards the end. Harvey didn't want that. He couldn't bear to yell at this girl, angry and hurt as he was by her - something kept him back, and he attributed it to the fact that his brother was sitting docilely in the kitchen and Harvey didn't want to disturb him.

Sabrina’s face twisted in regret and Harvey had to let go of the notion that this girl was a stranger as he saw familiar sincerity in her eyes that battered at him like a hammer. “Harvey, I’m...”  Sabrina was never lost for words and yet here, she was. 

“I _can’t_ , ‘Brina. I can’t let you do that to him. He’s my brother, he’s  _ Tommy _ . You can’t kill him, not after you brought him back.”

“Then  _ you’ll  _ have to do it.” Her defeated words registered like a slap.

He jerked back. “What the hell are you saying?”

“You have to,” Sabrina insisted, shoulders slumping with the weight of what she said. Despite his earlier rejection, she moved forward to touch his shoulders again, face unbearably close to him. Her blonde eyelashes dipped as she looked down, and Harvey’s stomach clenched at the familiar sight. He wanted to push her away.

“No, forget it! I’m not doing it, Sabrina.” His face shuttered close at the muffled sound of a door slam. “That’s my dad,” he said. “You have to go. And take your friend with you."

"Harvey, we have to do something _now,_ before it's too late and something happens to you!" 

"I don't care what happens to me," Harvey said, and turned his eyes on the dark-haired boy who was emerging from the darkness so that his hostility wouldn't remain on his girlfriend - his ex, he supposed, she was now. He didn't know. It didn't seem like the appropriate time to ask about their relationship status, as this didn't seem like an average couple's argument, so he kept quiet. The hulking footsteps of his father came nearer and nearer and Harvey watched as the dark-haired boy grasped Sabrina's wrist. There was a glimpse of calculation and unhappy resoluteness on Sabrina's face that sent a wave of agitation through Harvey just before the two swirled and flickered away - causing him to step back, alarmed.

"What are you standing around for, staring at the wall?"

Harvey barely stopped himself from jumping at his father's rough voice. Turning around, he mumbled something about checking on their dinner that was cooking on the stove before awkwardly ducking past his dad's frame in the doorway. His pace sped up as he sought to find his brother. Perhaps Sabrina was wrong. Perhaps the doctor's diagnosis was right and all Tommy needed was a few more days for the shock to wear off.  Harvey comforted himself with the idea, even though in the back of his head, there was the bitter acknowledgement that Sabrina was right. 


End file.
